


when you come to your senses

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Phil Coulson: human disaster, Pining, mentioned Daisy/Lincoln, post 'Maveth', slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:38:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>five ways Coulson thinks about Daisy</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you come to your senses

The first time, he sees it.

It's not like he hasn't picked up on the tension already. He's noticed the glances between Daisy and Lincoln, interpreted Daisy's awkward silences. He's read people for twenty years. If he didn't know there was something going on between the two of them, he'd be an idiot. And it's not like he could claim jealousy, he'd thought at the time, not when he was carefully fostering a flirtation with Rosalind. He'd felt it anyway, the hot stab of something not strictly professional, squashed it down and tried his hardest to look at Daisy as no more than an agent.

It's no harder than it's ever been, but then, it's always been difficult. She's always been more than an agent to him.

In the extraction pod, Daisy's barely conscious, a smear of blood under her nose betraying that she's stayed close to the portal for too long, and Coulson might be weary to his bones but he can still manage a fresh wave of guilt at that. They slump against each other, let their shoulders brush. Coulson can hear Fitz talking to Mack but it's muffled, as if from the other end of a long tunnel. Daisy leans forward, rests her elbows on her thighs, drops her head between her knees and takes what looks like a deep breath, and when she sits back up, there's more color in her cheeks. 

"I thought-" she says, very low, touches her fingertips to his forearm just above where his hand would connect, if it connected. "I thought we'd lost you there, Phil."

Coulson doesn't move. He doesn't say anything. There's nothing to say. How does he explain that they did, that they lost him, that the Phil she means isn't the man sitting here? Eventually Daisy pulls her hand back, looks away, but her shoulder's still pressed against his, warm and solid.

When she walks out of the pod, it's with determined purpose, and Coulson knows even before he sees the way Lincoln's looking at her that it's going to be this. He should look away. He should close his eyes. It should be easy to ignore an intimate moment between them. 

It's not. He can't not look, has to watch the way Daisy tilts her head, parts her lips a little to kiss Lincoln harder. She wraps her arms around him, lets him pull her close and tangle his fingers a little in her hair, and Coulson shouldn't look, shouldn't  _see_ , but he does. Even through the gray fog that's filling him up, even through the way he's remembering, again and again, what Ward's chest felt like crumpling under his palm, he sees it, and the way Daisy's kissing, it hurts.

He wonders, later, if it would have been different if he'd moved. If he'd said something. If he'd told her she hadn't lost him, would she still have gone to Lincoln? It's too late, he thinks. It's been too late for a long time.

 

 

He wanders the base at night now, can't sleep through nightmares that feel too real and dreams of Rosalind that feel worse, and he should have expected that eventually he'd hear something.

It's late, everyone asleep, and he only realizes he's in the hall outside Daisy's bunk when he hears a soft sound, a breathy moan that for a moment he interprets as distress. He remembers Daisy's last nightmares, thinks of earthquakes and smashing glass and Daisy whimpering in her sleep, and wonders if he should knock. There's silence, a long pause, and then Daisy gasps, cries out in a way that's unmistakable. It makes his heart race even before he puts together the pieces and flushes hot with embarrassment.

At least he didn't knock, he thinks, walks away quietly, squeezes his fingers into a fist.

Back in his bunk, he can't get the sound out of his head, hears it over and over. She makes  _good_ noises, he thinks, and then is furious with himself. She's an agent, nothing more, and he hasn't been able to offer her anything else. The least he can do is think of Daisy professionally. He washes down a sleeping pill with two fingers of scotch, sleeps for five hours and wakes dreaming not of Ward or of Rosalind but of Daisy, of open-mouthed kisses and a soft moan he can't forget.

He can't look her in the eye that morning, or the next, but he's been avoiding her gaze for weeks now. He hopes she doesn't know it's for any other reason. He stops walking through the halls, afraid (perhaps hopeful) he'll hear her again. He goes to the gym instead and runs on the treadmill for hours trying to tire himself out. Sometimes it even works.

When it doesn't, Daisy's in his dreams as often as anyone else, a breathless gasp that leaves him hard and wanting and ashamed, and it feels like a betrayal every time.

 

 

Chamomile tea has never helped Coulson sleep, but it doesn't stop him from trying, and if nothing else, the heat of the mug is soothing against his fingertips. He leans against the kitchen bench, inhales the sweetly apple-scented steam, closes his eyes and wills the images out of his head.

"Oh-" Daisy says from the doorway. "Hi. Sorry. I didn't think anyone would be awake." When he opens his eyes, she's in flannel pajama pants, a loose sweater, looks a little startled to see him.

"Couldn't sleep," he replies, his voice a little raspy, and she nods, brushes past him to get a glass from the cupboard. He breathes in without thinking. It's a mistake. Daisy smells of sex, all sweet musk and warm skin and sweat. He's instantly hard, achingly so, and notices the flush high across her cheeks, the sheen down her throat. She turns on the tap, fills her glass and leans a hip against the bench herself, drinks thirstily and refills.

"You get a lot of trouble sleeping?" she asks him after a moment, looking at him careful and evaluative, and Coulson sets down his mug, drags his palm across the rasping stubble of his cheek.

"Yeah," he admits, "since- yeah."

"I'm sorry," Daisy says sincerely, reaches out as if to touch his face herself and then pulls her hand back. "You probably don't want to- I mean, with _me_ , but- if you ever do want to talk, Coulson, I'm here."

He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't ever want to think about it again. He wants to breathe Daisy in until the scent of her skin is all he knows.

"Okay," he mutters ungraciously, turns away from her just enough that she gets the message, fills her glass once more, walks away. A glass of water for Lincoln, he thinks, he's waiting for her in her bed right now, and sips his too-hot tea, scalds his mouth painfully. He can't smell the chamomile tea at all, can just smell Daisy like traces of perfume still in the air.

 

 

When Lincoln leaves, Coulson's first thought is,  _but why would you go when Daisy_ _kisses you like she does_. He looks at her without meaning to, searches for traces of tears in her face, but if she's upset about it, she's learned to hide it better, or maybe he's just not looking for the right things.

They could still be talking, he supposes, it could be another double-play like the last time Lincoln ran out on her, but he doubts it, somehow. He tries not to think of it in terms of relationships. Lincoln was a SHIELD ally, and now he's not, maybe, and that should worry him. He thinks, a little painfully, that it's Mack's problem to deal with. He's never taken back the Director's role, and Mack hasn't pushed. He hasn't even been on a field mission in weeks.

"Hey Coulson," Daisy says one morning, pauses in the doorway. "I need you on this one."

"Really?" he asks, skeptical, because he can't help but think Daisy doesn't need him for anything. "Not Joey? Or Mack?"

"Nope," she replies, doesn't elaborate, but if Daisy needs him, he'll go.

It's an undercover mission, simple assignment, and he understands now why Mack and Joey weren't her picks for partner. The crowd is old-Hydra to the point of racism; a well-dressed older white man, beautiful young woman on his arm, gets barely a second glance. Daisy, he can't stop glancing at all night. Her dress is tight, low-cut with a slink to it, and when she moves, he catches glimpses of her bare thigh through the high side-split. She's an  _agent_ , he thinks, furious all over again, an agent and his field partner on this, and she deserves better.

He still feels every touch of her fingers on his suit jacket, the brush of her silk dress against his hand, her warmth as they dance together.

"I want to get into that back room," Daisy murmurs to him, quiet enough they won't be overheard, and he nods, raises an eyebrow.

"Got a plan?"

"Follow my lead," she tells him, and he does, without hesitation, lets her dance closer, lets his hand drift lower on her back. She's faking drunker than she is, leaning into him, gets him up against the wall next to the door and then in one smooth move ducks them both through into the hallway.

"What now?" he asks, can still feel the way Daisy pressed up against him, and she just smiles, takes him by the elbow, leads him through to the back room and steals all the secrets she needs, tucks the USB drive back into her bra with a cheeky grin. It only takes ten minutes, and then they're back in the hallway, and Daisy tenses before he can even see a thing.

"Oh," she mutters, "shit, it's back-up," and grabs him, spins them so her back's to the wall and he's pressed up close. "Sorry, Phil," she whispers, takes his hands and presses his left to her bare thigh, his right over her breast. "Work with me, okay," she breathes, arches her body into him, and Coulson can't resist, can't hold back, because he's  _touching_ and it might just be a mission but the softness of Daisy's breast cupped in his palm, it's too much.

He slides his hand higher up her thigh, lets her wrap her leg up around his hip, wishes his new prosthetic transmitted more sensation than vague warmth. Daisy's breath is hot on his throat, and when he rubs his palm a little over her, he feels her nipple harden through the thin silk of the dress. He pinches her, just a little, and she moans, shudders against him, tilts her hips a little more and pulls him in even closer against her. He's hard, he's so hard, and he knows she can feel it, knows he's pressed close enough that the friction of their bodies together is telling her everything, but when he grinds his hips into her, Daisy moans again, drags her teeth down her throat just hard enough that it stings.

Someone clears their throat, and they break apart, Daisy's eyes glassy and her cheeks flushed.

"You can't be back here," the waiter tells them, obviously amused, and Coulson ducks his head, nods, leads Daisy back into the ballroom.

"Ready to leave?" he asks her, and she pauses for a second, takes a breath.

"I-" she says, drags her eyes very slowly down his body. "Yeah. Okay."

That night he gives in to what he's wanted to do for so long, wraps his fingers around his cock and strokes himself thinking of Daisy's body against his, the softness of her breast, the scrape of her teeth on his skin. He comes harder than he's expecting, sleeps better than he has in months. He doesn't dream at all.

 

 

Days later, early in the morning, he's coming out of his bunk and runs into Daisy in the hall, makes a surprised noise as they collide.

"Oh-" she says, looks at him for just a moment and then kisses him as determined as she's ever been, bites at his mouth, grabs at his shoulders. She tastes like mint toothpaste, tingling on his lips, and he can't do anything but kiss back.

"Daisy, what..." he manages eventually, and she pulls back just enough to look at him again, returns to kissing him hard enough he can hardly breathe through it.

"Coulson, I need-" she whispers, pushes him back into his bunk, tugs at his shirt. "Sorry, is this too much? Too fast?"

It's not too fast. It feels like it's too slow, like whatever it is that Daisy is doing should have happened months ago. The idea that she's been thinking about this, that she's been wanting as much as he has, that she _needs_ it, Coulson feels his heart race. When she gets his shirt off, pulls off her gym sweatshirt with quick efficiency and slides her skin hot against his, Coulson mouthes kisses down the side of her neck, tastes the salt of her sweat on his lips.

"Can I..." Daisy asks, glances from him to his bunk, and yes,  _yes_ , she can, Daisy can do whatever she wants to do. She gets him on his back, shoves off her leggings, straddles his face, and Coulson nearly comes just from Daisy wet and slick against his mouth. He dips his tongue into her, swirls around her clit, sucks until she's shaking above him, stifling her moans. Her thighs clench and she comes apart, cries out, grinds down on his face. She's all he can taste. It's all he's ever wanted.

 

 

They sleep, afterwards, wake up late, and Coulson can look at Daisy, can touch her, can listen to the way she sighs in pleasure when he strokes his fingers down her side. He can still taste her in his mouth, can breathe in the scent of her hair.

"Why now?" he asks, curious, and she leans forward, kisses him lush and comprehensive, draws back to gaze unblinkingly into his eyes. She's got her palm resting against his jaw, her other hand tucked under her cheek, and Coulson thinks he might never get used to seeing her this close.

"I was done giving you space," she says, thinks about it a little, shrugs. "And then, I mean. I don't know about you, but that, in the hallway-"

"I couldn't stop thinking about it," he admits.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you long before that," she tells him. "You didn't want to talk, I get that. But you wanted  _something_."

He thinks maybe he might want to talk, now. It's never been too late. They've just been waiting for the right time.


End file.
